


Spiral

by HyperMint



Category: Jurassic Park III (2001)
Genre: M/M, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:26:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11381124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperMint/pseuds/HyperMint
Summary: Billy once told Eric that every scar had a story and that every story needed a scar or it wouldn't be a very good story. And it's funny, because the one scar that changed his entire life had the one story he couldn't remember.A follow-up to 'Two-Factor Theory'.





	Spiral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foolish_mortal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolish_mortal/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Two-Factor Theory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/396118) by [foolish_mortal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolish_mortal/pseuds/foolish_mortal). 



> (Disclaimer: JPIII is not mine and the spark that lit this idea is thanks to foolish_mortal.)
> 
> AN: I had originally tried to write this idea a few years ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Then I tried again and actually saw what a spiral looked like - think a nautilus or small garden snail shell - and that stalled out. And then I read 'Two-Factor Theory' (by foolish_mortal) again last night, which was what gave me the original idea to begin with, so ...
> 
> I finally did it. 
> 
> Thank you to foolish_mortal for writing such a wonderful story and letting me write this little thing. Sorry it took so long. 
> 
> (Which means everyone has to go read Two-Factor for this to make a little sense and some spoilers. If you haven't read it already, it's a treat to savor.)

* * *

It was ridiculous, no two ways about it.

Ever since that scare Eric had given him, Alan and Eric’s mother Amanda after breaking the news that the wedding was off, Billy kept coming back to the strangely spiral-looking scar on his thumb.

Isla Sorna had given him long, thin scars and those he would forever remember as being from InGen. Maybe even Jurassic Park, but only Alan, Ian, Ellie, Hammond and the two Murphy siblings could truly claim the scars from the failed attraction.

And being involved with extreme sports – and probably ill-advised cooking attempts – made sure that Billy had other scars, too. Because that’s what had happened and there were stories behind each of them because no story was good without one and no scar went without.

Billy had always believed that, so it was with some surprise that there was one scar in his collection that had no corresponding story. Not one that he could remember, anyway.

It must’ve been a good story, too, because he wouldn’t have had the scar otherwise, right?

Which was why Billy was trying to remember as he waited for the spaghetti noodles to be cooked for dinner one night after Eric had returned home to Oklahoma. It drove him _nuts_ to remember every other scar he’d ever gotten except for this one and he’d simply chalked it up to Sorna when Eric had asked. After all, that place made you forget things and that was something Billy could personally attest to.

Like sleep, for example, and dreamless nights.

And common sense, for that matter.

So maybe it wasn’t as surprising as Billy would’ve thought to have forgotten something, even if it really must’ve been quite the adventure.

Alan saw him frowning down at it after dinner and asked about it.

“Hm? Oh, nothing,” he shook his head. “Not really. It’s just… remember when I told Eric about scars and stories? It’s been bothering me ever since because I’ve got a story for each, but not this one.”

He showed the scar to Alan, who studied it silently.

“Thoughts, Dr. Grant?”

Alan studied it for another silent moment before glancing at Billy thoughtfully. “Maybe the reason you can’t remember the story is because it hasn’t ended yet.”

“Sure, it has,” Billy frowned at him. “Every other one has a story that happened already, so why not this one? Come on, Alan. Everyone knows that scars happen during a period of time that’s already ended. This one’s no different.”

“You don’t know that,” Alan pointed out. “Why wouldn’t you remember it otherwise? There might be something in your mind’s subconscious that’s telling you that that particular scar is important to you and keeping the memory from you is a good way of saying that the story’s not ended, yet.”

Billy hummed non-committedly before deciding it a lost cause, at least for tonight. He fell asleep sometime later, his head cushioned on Alan’s shoulder as his grip on Alan’s hand loosened.

Alan knew he would have to wake him so they could get to sleep in an actual bed, but a few moments probably wouldn’t hurt either of them.

He let his gaze travel down to the hand he held and he tilted his head with a slight smile.

There was a distinct irony that Billy couldn’t remember the scar on his thumb – nor its story -, and, yet, Alan remembered exactly how and when the younger man had gotten it.

A story that Alan would remember for years to come, one he cherished because it had led him here to this moment.

And it wasn’t the end of a story as Billy had believed, but the _beginning_ of one.

The beginning of the first dig without Ellie in Montana, the beginning of a life after Jurassic Park. (Though he and Ian knew well that nothing was ever ‘after’ Jurassic Park because it followed them even all these years later.)

The beginning of a new day and the first trip out to the dig after everyone had arrived so he could be sure everyone was there.

He remembered surveying the gathering students and volunteers and spying a few on a nearby outcropping that wasn’t that high up. He remembered coming toward them and one of them pointing him out to the others, one crouching and rummaging in a small camera bag with his back to the dig.

The one crouched down had immediately spun around, too fast to keep his balance and too close to the edge to find a stabilizing object.

Alan remembered seeing a hand shoot out to grab onto a rock too small to do much and the young man was tumbling tail over teakettle down the outcropping to where Alan met him at the bottom.

He remembered thinking that the kid was lucky the injury to his hand was all he got out of his fall and even remembered saying it to the pair of wide chocolate brown eyes as they stared up at him almost dazedly.

He remembered checking to make sure the injury was okay hours later, before the camp closed for the night, and making the kid’s acquaintance.

Little had he known, as he shook Billy Brennan’s hand that first night, that they would end up here and on the edge of a different outcropping.

He never actually took a good look at the scar that was left as a reminder, but he thought it pretty ironic that it was a spiral.

It explained their friendship, then relationship, and he couldn’t help wondering which one of them was spiraling around the other. As long as the shape ended with them meeting at one point, he probably couldn’t care less.

Or maybe they’d reached that meeting point already. He couldn’t say.

It was alright if Billy didn’t remember that spiral’s story just yet. Maybe one day Alan would tell him.

But the story would be without an end, because it was still being written with every smile gifted, every laugh unleashed, every stolen fry.

And it was his dearest hope that the story wouldn’t end for a long, long time.

* ** *

END.


End file.
